ABSTRACT
The rise of populist anti-immigration parties in Western Europe has received wide attention in the scholarly literature (for example, Fennema 2005, Ignazi 1992, 2003, Kitschelt 1997, Minkenberg 1992, Van der Brug 2003). Time and again, researchers have concluded that support for such parties is mostly found among the lower educated (for example, Achterberg 2006a, 2006b, Houtman et al. 2008a, Kitschelt 1995, Minkenberg 1992). They are the ones who form ‘an electoral potential …, which feels attracted to an anti-immigrant message’ (Van der Brug 2003: 103). Of course, this is hardly surprising given the consistent finding that the lower educated are more ethnically intolerant than the higher educated (Adorno et al. 1950, Dekker and Ester 1987, Grabb 1979, 1980, Lipset 1981, Lipsitz 1965).
